


So Small a Thing

by MirrorMystic



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: During Canon, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Artur and Lute discuss fashion, the future, and their upcoming promotions.(Or: I complain about Artur not keeping his color scheme as a Bishop.)





	So Small a Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. Bishops get Slayer, and Lute as a Mageknight gets some much-needed Constitution. But I always wound up making them both Sages, and this fic sort-of shows why. Plus- my take on a platonic A support. Two birds, and all that. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the read. ^^

~*~  
  
It wasn’t the prettiest ring around. It was rather clunky, all told- gaudy and garish, a central ruby flanked by pearls on either side. But there was something about the silver band, thrumming with energy, warm to the touch. It was as if she could see her future branching out before her, coalescing out of shadows into light and color…   
  
“Lute?” Artur asked, his mop of red curls appearing within the ring. “What are you doing?”   
  
“Studying,” Lute said, automatically. It was rarely a dishonest response.   
  
“You should be packing,” Artur chided, flitting around their cottage, ferrying armfuls of clothes. “The Princess was gracious enough to allow us this bit of leave, but the convoy will not wait for us forever.”   
  
Lute sat on her bed in her room, idly flipping through her grimoire. A strange warmth filled her body- the Guiding Ring’s influence, no doubt. She could feel it pooling her magic in her hand, crystallizing it into some greater, grander form. She could feel the future, calling, ghostlike, a wind through the trees. There was work to be done. There were things to see.   
  
It irked her that Artur was so fixated on the tedious, mundane present.   
  
“ _Lute_ ,” Artur said. Lute could keep a catalog of all the things Artur could say simply with different inflections of her name.   
  
“I’m already packed,” Lute replied.   
  
“Are you?” Artur stopped in the door, glancing at the pack at Lute’s feet- filled with more books than clothes. “...Is that all you’re taking?”   
  
“What more would I need?” Lute asked, leafing through the tome on her lap.   
  
Artur placed a hand on the page Lute was reading- to her immediate vexation- and lifted the book off her lap. Just a few scant months ago, Lute was able to kick her feet when she sat on the edge of her bed. Now, her boots reached the floor, and her skirt barely reached her knees.   
  
“A new dress, to begin with,” Artur said.   
  
“This one will suffice,” Lute said.   
  
“You’re getting taller by the day,” Artur said. “It must be all the recent excitement.”   
  
“Sunlight, fresh air, proper hydration,” Lute counted on her fingers. “These are all factors to proper growth.”   
  
“What about ‘good soil’?” Artur mused.   
  
“That’s why I have my boots,” Lute said with a straight face, missing Artur’s sarcasm. She looked up, and stared at him with her usual strange intensity.   
  
“...You look wrong,” she announced. Artur blinked, and glanced down at his new robe.   
  
“I’m just wearing blue.”   
  
“I don’t like it.”   
  
“Honestly, I’m not over-fond of it, myself,” Artur made a face. “But it’s not my decision to make. I have to wear the colors the bishopric decides.”   
  
“Lady L’arachel doesn’t have to wear blue.”   
  
“Yes, but she’s a princess.”   
  
Lute shrugged and murmured a non-response. Her Guiding Ring pulsed on her finger.   
  
“What if you didn’t follow the bishopric?”   
  
That’s a loaded question, and Lute knows it. Artur frowned, folding more laundry and piling it neatly in his bags. His own Guiding Ring glinted on his finger- a matched set with Lute’s, not unlike the bracelets worn by the crown siblings of Renais. He worked his jaw, but the words wouldn’t come.   
  
“You could wear what you want,” Lute said for him. “You could go where you want. After this is over.”   
  
Artur took a deep breath and sighed. He leaned over a desk, clutching the wood until his knuckles were white.   
  
“...I would not be opposed to living a more… secular life,” he said quietly. “There’s more to this world than just tending a homestead. Between quiet piety, and Lady L’Arachel’s manic crusade, well… surely, there’s something in between.”   
  
A length of fabric fell across Artur’s shoulders. He turned, meeting Lute’s vivid violet eyes.   
  
“This is your color,” Lute said, a seeming non-sequitur. Artur reached up and gathered the seafoam green fabric between his fingers.   
  
“You’re not wrong,” Artur said, smiling. “...Although, these vestments, too, were once bishopric blue. Before your, ah, experiment.”   
  
“The conjured fire was simply to agitate the wash-water and to facilitate the removal of stains,” Lute recited.   
  
“Yes, and then you boiled all the color out of this stole,” Artur chuckled.   
  
“Not all of it,” Lute corrected. “Only the color that wasn’t yours.”   
  
There was an undeniable charm to that off-kilter reasoning. Artur held up his hand and idly twisted the band of his Guiding Ring around his finger. He took a deep breath, and sighed.   
  
“Wearing this ring, I feel like… I can see the future,” Artur said. “Is that strange?”   
  
“Not at all,” Lute said, matter-of-factly. “It’s not called a ‘Guiding Ring’ on an idle whim. It senses the flow of magic within you, grasps your potential, and charts it out across a number of roads. Some of these roads, I have already considered, naturally. It always helps to consider every circumstance.”   
  
“What do you see, then?”   
  
“I see a journey,” Lute said. “I see empty tomes, ready to be filled up with the secrets of the natural world. I see a lot of writing, in my future. A lot of ink and quills. You’re there, of course.”   
  
“Of course,” Artur echoes.   
  
“And I see a choice,” Lute continued. “Between a horse, and a new dress.”   
  
Artur blinked, confused. Lute abruptly stood up, slung her pack over her shoulder, and lingered in the door. She looked back at Artur, fixing him with that intense violet stare.   
  
“...Now who’s keeping the convoy waiting?” She asked, earnestly, but Artur liked to think she was teasing.   
  
Artur did one last check through his belongings, before he slung his pack over his shoulder and stepped outside. In the distance, he could see the silhouette of pegasi over the trees. However Lute knew it was time to leave, it was uncanny.   
  
“Which do you think you’ll choose?” he asked.   
  
“Hm?”   
  
“The dress, or the horse.”   
  
The convoy appeared, filing through the woods. Artur waved placidly at the returning, familiar faces. Lute was already distracted, scratching notes in the margins of her grimoire.   
  
“The dress,” Lute said, without looking up.   
  
“Oh?” Artur wondered.   
  
“You said I needed a new one,” Lute shrugged.   
  
“It certainly sounds less complicated than tending to a horse…” Artur mused.   
  
“It does mean you’ll have to carry our in-progress lore book by hand,” Lute continued.   
  
“I’m coming with you on this sage’s venture, am I?”   
  
“Of course. Where else would you be? Tending my horse?”   
  
Artur just smiled fondly and shook his head, while Lute babbled on.   
  
“You don’t know the first thing about working a stables. A horse is not a pet, it’s a whole host of responsibilities and complications. I’d rather not open that jar of spiders.”   
  
Artur shuddered. “I really wish you wouldn’t phrase it like that…”   
  
They ventured off to rejoin the convoy, their futures shining like rubies on their fingers. Lute kept on chirping in Artur’s ear, her voice like birdsong in the evening air. Artur shifted his pack on his shoulders. He looked resplendent in his new vestments, the blue turning violet in the setting sunlight. Still, he reached into his pack, and brushed his fingers against the seafoam green stole he’d tucked away- just in case.   
  
~*~


End file.
